For example: Tonight, I'm going to watch the Sharks-Stars hockey game. This makes the third pro hockey game I've ever seen -- and all three have been with the fabulous Ms. meerkat. The Sharks are down 3-1 in a best of 7. Hopefully, they'll take care of things. 8)

Game night proceeds apace. Some new people showing up and new games being played. We needed an infusion of new stuff into the group. Voila! Now we have it.

Last night, I picked up the last remaining Atari console that I didn't own -- a 7800 from Oakland. I have another interesting console on the hook -- a TurboExpress. To wit, the only remaining things I don't have (and want) are the Sega Nomad, a Neo-Geo AES, Neo-Geo CD, Hyper Neo-Geo 64, and a Wii. An Odyssey or Vectrex might be nice, but of limited utility.

meerkat and I were discussing ways of organizing my game consoles. The setup in the living room took a quantum leap forward a few weeks ago when I made use of one of my book cases to hold each of my platforms and some of the games. Apart from wires going every which way, it looks almost civilized. The end result, I think, is going to be a job that I'm going to have to do.

Of course, one *could* just build a MAME box and get all the ROMs and so on. And to the people who say that, I say "SCREW YOU!" Also, one of these days, I'll start making a MAME box of my own. The problem is that I'm a sucker for the real controls. One cannot properly play Centipede with a joystick. One cannot play Star Wars with a trackball. One cannot play Super Mario Bros. with a keyboard. And you *need* that spinner for Tron. I've had ideas on this front for a while. My solution is complicated, involves me learning more about the bluetooth stack in Linux, and -- of course -- fun!

Ayrton Senna died 14 years ago yesterday. This lead to a number of improvements in driver safety, the most obvious of which is a tether from the helmet to the back of the car to reduce the likelihood of breaking one's neck during sudden deceleration called the HANS device. An interesting tidbit -- during the qualifying round, Austria's Roland Ratzenberger had a fatal crash. This alone had shocked the racing world. It was an unfortunate run of bad luck that Senna would be killed the next day at the turn leading onto the straight that Ratzenberger crashed on. When examining Senna's car after his death, they found a furled Austrian flag. Senna had apparently planned on raising it if he took a victory lap. Little stories like this serve to remind me of the good in mankind.

Senna is to date the last F1 driver with a fatal accident.

The MR2 is driving nicely. The open top has contributed to sunburns which have turned into suntans. I'm losing geek cred by the second here. A coworker said that watching me drive reminded him of a tune called "Lincoln Hotrod".

Speaking of which, the drive down to LA had me hitting a new top speed for the MR2 on a long stretch.

The Festival of Times this year was good. zweeb and greenbuttercup accompanied me. Went to two panels -- one on comics and Ray Bradbury's usual talk. Jeph Loeb was at the comics one. I knew him previously for a number of excellent works. I had no idea he'd been involved in movies first -- he actually worked on Teen Wolf!

Bradbury's talk this year was not his best, but it still stirs one. He's been made Commander in the Arts and Letters by the French ambassador and has taken to commanding people to get out there and start loving.

Naturally, there were lots of purchases. A couple of copies of Dandelion Wine and one of Farewell, Summer -- all autographed by Bradbury. The latest from Don't Eat Any Bugs productions -- the artist and his mother recognized me from previous years. We had an enjoyable, but brief chat -- they had a lot of interest. My desk at work is now adorned with the Thoughts of Chairman Miaow and Stick. The former is reproductions of Mao-era propaganda posters with cat-related adjustments to the themes and art. The latter is a series of famous paintings, sculptures, moments in film and history reproduced entirely in line drawings.

One of my favorite bits is a book called Cosmic Motors. It's a car designer's flight of fancy. The artist engages in a number of imaginative designs for conveyances with discussions about the car's adaptations for its environment, the people who use them, and so on.

Other books included Musashi's Go Rin No Sho, a primer on hiragana, Spy Vs. Spy collections, and a book on Japanese fashions.

There's little bits of inspiration which will come out soon and change bits of my wardrobe. It's time for my clothing to acknowledge the fact that I live in the future!

Looking back to my new years resolutions some five months along is interesting. There's progress on everything except five and six. I was particularly pleased by nyankoframe's exclamation when he visited me of "Wow, this looks a lot different". meerkat is helping to spur me along in a number of areas -- cleaning and eating in particular. She's gotten me to start cooking again. I experimented with a variation of pasta al aglio olio with some success. I'm exploring somewhat healthier options and working on those chops.

Plans on the homefront are particularly promising and a number of factors are pushing me steadily out of apartment life.

Lest they go unmentioned, Meg & Tera have been all sorts of wonderful. There have been subtle changes to their living conditions and they seem to be taking them in stride. They even seem to be sharing me well. Meg used to push Tera out of the way when I'd pet her, but the two of them now realize that I have two hands for a reason. Meg's been sitting in my lap a lot when I'm on the couch and reminding me of when we first got them.

Welp -- I've got to get some work done before the Sharks game this evening. See you later, gators!

I don't believe in LJ cuts unless it's for spoilers or pictures or something that's going to screw someone's friends page up. It's easy to scroll past a long bunch of text if you don't want to read it. After all, it's the person's journal and not yours. I never LJ cut long posts.